


Tastes of the Desert

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: Two Halves - Reylo Weekly Challenge Flash Fiction [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 'Cooking' with Rey of Jakku, Ben Solo Can Be Persuasive, Ben Solo: Not Made for Desert Life, Breakfast, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Flash Fiction, Fluff and Humor, Force Bond (Star Wars), Jakku, On the Road with Rey and Ben, POV Rey (Star Wars), Portions Glorious Portions, Post-IX, Redeemed Ben Solo, Return to the AT-AT, Sharing a Hammock Can Be Fun, reylo freeform, saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 19:43:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: Rey and Ben spend a few days on Jakku, sleeping in Rey's old AT-AT home as she ties up loose ends and determines to depart once and for all on her own terms. On their final morning, they face the culinary shortcomings of an itinerant lifestyle in a desert wasteland.





	Tastes of the Desert

**Author's Note:**

> Response for a weekly ficlet challenge from the 'two-halves-of-reylo' Tumblr weekly challenge, Prompt #10, "Food."

Soon they would move on. Neither of them had declared it, but Rey woke with the impression that last night had been their last here. She felt it so certainly that she didn’t question whether it was the right time to go. The notion seemed very final, for all she knew she could come back. Jakku would still be exactly where it had always been. She just didn’t think she wanted to return again after this. Nearly twenty years spent there had been enough. And this time, she could leave it behind on her own terms.

When she and Ben arrived two days ago, Rey had been pleasantly surprised by how much of her old home in the _Hellhound Two_ was still intact. The security measures she’d spent so long developing and improving had pulled their weight, even after it had ceased to matter any longer if they did. Her homemade flight simulator was there, and functional; her cookware; her hammock; her makeshift medical kit; the emergency cache of food portions she'd fortunately never had reason to resort to (many still edible despite the years that had passed). With a little work and coaxing, the generator had powered back up. Even the things that now struck her as frivolous—the dried flowers, the Rebel pilot’s helmet, the doll she made as a child—seemed a miracle. Everything that had once made up her life, preserved and safe in the dry desert air. 

It had been like opening a tomb. She hated thinking of it that way. Sleeping there a few nights had helped. It didn't feel like home anymore, but it felt like it _could_ be one, to another person. Another Rey. A Rey who had kept waiting, who had never found a lost BB unit, who had never been found in turn by so many others. That Rey may have had a simpler life. Maybe she would have left eventually. But she would have done so disappointed and alone.

In the curtained-off area that once again served as a kitchen, she was sorting through the drawerful of dwindling portions. She would have a few for breakfast. Probably, Ben would pass on it, as he had the last two mornings in favor of the food they'd left stored in the _Falcon_. She couldn’t blame him, but despite how tasteless they were, there was something comforting about their blandness too. Not _enjoyable_ , not at all, but they were the sort of thing one ate while setting up camp in an old, gutted war vehicle, which they were. And so it was what she had been eating.

With several packets in hand, Rey peered around at the hammock, where Ben was still sleeping. She was grateful that he hadn't also passed on that arrangement, even though the bunk in the _Falcon_ was more spacious and arguably more comfortable. She had been adamant about sleeping in the AT-AT, and equally adamant that she didn't expect him to do so as well. But of course he had. 

And so it had been the two of them trying to figure out how to arrange themselves in the hammock each night. It was snug, but given how cold the desert was after dark, the snugness was a plus. By last night, it even felt a bit like a game—vying for space and comfort as aggressively as their tired limbs allowed, teasing and poking and needling, all while trying not to tip themselves out of it altogether to end up in a heap on the floor. They’d done that the first night, and Ben had convinced her to stay down there a while with him. He could be persuasive.

Now, though, the temperature was rising with the sun. Rey had awoken on her own, when it was still mostly dark, which allowed her to enjoy her last Jakku sunrise. The planet didn’t have much to recommend it, but its sunrises and sunsets were always striking, gorgeous things. Those, she would miss. Only when she’d been seated atop the AT-AT, her skin beginning to warm in the fresher air, did she realize it was the change in temperature that had roused her. An old habit she'd never known she had.

Ben had no such habits. Right now, he was still a collection of limbs protruding at odd angles from the hammock that cocooned him. She’d left the blanket over him when she rose, but he’d thrown it off and sprawled since. Spending nights with him was nothing new, yet it continued to strike her how he seemed to be making up for a lifetime of uneasy, stolen sleep, as if now that he finally could be left to it, he intended to indulge himself when allowed. It made her feel a little guilty waking him up. 

Rather than startle him with a touch, she remained where she was and reached for him through the Force. His presence there felt warm and uncharacteristically placid.

 _Ben. Hey?_ She waited a few seconds, perceiving no change in his state but enjoying the tranquility of the connection. _You awake?_

The hammock stirred a little.

“I am now.” His voice was gravelly and muffled. If he sounded annoyed she couldn't really blame him.

“Sorry,” she said. Now that she knew standing over and prodding him wouldn't be too rude an awakening, Rey came nearer. He was still sunken into the hammock, eyes closed and some hair stuck to the side of his face. “Good morning, anyway.”

“Morning.” One of his hands waved aimlessly and he rolled onto his back. “You were dreaming last night. A lot.” 

It wasn't a question. Maneuvering to sit on the unsteady surface, Ben scrubbed a hand over his face, then tipped to his feet and stretched. 

“Yeah. Being here is bringing things to mind, I guess.” She could remember some of it, but for the most part it was just impressions, half-images, flashes of emotion. “I don't recall many details. I assume it wasn't a bad one.”

“No, it was nice.”

“Good.”

He didn’t elaborate. Even if they had little control over the way the Force shared things between them, there was a degree to which they could each respect the other’s privacy. Sometimes their dreams overlapped. In sleep they might experience the same visions or feelings, good and bad. Rey didn’t mind, and she didn’t think he did either. It was a fact, a facet of their relationship, and they accepted it. Still, those things could be so intimate. It could be unnerving, not knowing right away if she was in her own head or his.

Ben had dreamed, too. While hers had been amorphous, wandering and elusive, his was much easier for her to call up now. It was just one: a single place she didn’t recognize but that was vividly realized. She recalled warm salt breezes and the sound of water lapping; peace and regret. She might ask about it, sometime. Now wasn’t it. Expecting she already knew the answer, she asked, “Do you want some breakfast?”

“Hm.” Ben was wandering away, half out of his shirt, and didn’t offer a more helpful answer until he had it in hand. “What did you find this time?”

She bit back a smile. He looked fairly miserable. His face was sunburnt and his jaw was darkened with days of stubble, and his ordinarily fair skin had taken on two distinctly different tones despite the precautions of desert-appropriate clothing. It was a good thing they'd be leaving that day. Ben Solo had not been made for desert living. Then again, the length of her absence had done her no favors, either. She hated feeling so out of place here. Everything was familiar, but the heat was more noticeable and she could tell her skin was no longer used to the intensity of the sun. Just a few days at its mercy had provoked an explosion of freckles on her face and arms.

With a small shrug, Rey drew up to him and dragged a finger along the tan line ringing his neck. “I’m just throwing together whatever’s still edible and eating ‘til I’m full. We’re leaving today and there’s no need to take it all along.” She leaned into him, circling his waist with an arm, smelling the dust and heat and sweat mingling on his skin as his arms wrapped loosely around her. 

“We’re leaving today?” Ben sounded unconcerned, but she felt his spike of relief when his mouth pressed to her forehead.

A slow grin crept across her face. “Don’t act disappointed, I know you aren’t.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

Piqued, she tipped her head back and stole a quick kiss. “Oh.” She pressed her mouth into a thin line and dipped her chin. “Wow. Your lips are even drier than last night.”

“Consider it a reminder of why we need to get out of here soon.” He turned away in search of cleaner clothing. “I’d forgotten, everything on this planet either sizzles or stinks.”

“I’m pretty sure the stink's just us,” she observed, moving back to the task of getting her meal set up. “But I’ve done what I need here. Or will have, by day’s end. So, you want in on these?” She held up a random assortment of portions. “Last chance for a taste of the desert.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ve had enough time here to determine that you're the only taste of the desert that agrees with me.”

Rey snorted at the peculiar, vaguely suggestive compliment.

“I’ll help you finish what’s there, though,” Ben said in afterthought. “If you make yourself sick we’ll be stuck here another night.”

“I won’t make myself sick. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not. But it’s best we don't linger. You’re on the verge of turning into one giant freckle.”

“Oi, last I recall, you liked them quite a bit.”

“I do, they’re”—he stumbled a little as he pulled on a fresh pair of pants—“very becoming. But meanwhile, I’m about a day away from completing my unwilling transformation into a piece of cured meat. I prefer to avoid it.”

“Dramatic,” she repeated. She grinned and lobbed a packet at him, which he easily dodged, then got started on resurrecting their breakfast.


End file.
